A Te Tiriti o Waitangi audit will determine if the Otago Regional Council is working in line with its commitment to partner with mana whenua, the council says.
The audit is highlighted in the council’s latest annual report, for 2022-23, due to be considered and adopted by councillors on Wednesday.
The report said the Treaty audit was being conducted by Te Kura Taka Pini, the Ngāi Tahu freshwater group, and was supported by local rūnaka.
Not only would the audit establish whether the council was operating in a manner consistent with its commitments to mana whenua, but also "whether a bicultural approach is demonstrated within its organisation", the report said.
The report said the council had "increased our active engagement on a range of issues, including land, water and air quality, biodiversity, natural hazards infrastructure, compliance and consenting, climate change and emergency management".
A raft of ongoing working relationship examples listed in the report included ongoing iwi engagement with councillors through Mana-to-Mana meetings; iwi engagement when the council refreshed its strategic directions; an iwi representative co-chairing the council’s environmental science and policy committee; and iwi representatives on the land and water plan governance group.
"Recognising the need to invest in building the bicultural competence of our staff, the ORC has an agreement with the Otago Polytechnic to provide bicultural competency training, which includes modules on te reo, tikaka and te Tiriti o Waitangi, the Treaty of Waitangi.
"There has been strong interest and uptake from staff this year," the report said.
Other highlights in the annual report included the electrification of Dunedin city buses with the first of 14 electric buses due to start operating this financial year.
Information was being collected at an increasing number of places on the health of Otago’s water, groundwater, air and land — and on the risks posed by natural hazards, the report said.
Pest monitoring continued as had the targeting of rooks, wallabies, wilding conifers and waterborne weeds.
In total, 1339 compliance audits and site inspections were completed over the last financial year.
There had been 957 resource consent applications compared with 603 the year before.
"Showing how vulnerable climatic events can make us, our rivers and infrastructure were also tested by four high-rainfall and one low-flow event last year, resulting in 71 sites for repairs — of these, 25 are still to be completed," the report said.
There was further work required to deal with erosion, gravel build-up or vegetation blockages.
"As in other regions, these added costs can be unexpected but require greater investment than we can predict. Climate change is making its presence felt everywhere."
The report further highlighted the council’s return to the Wanaka A&P Show, an earthworks event to educate the construction sector in Queenstown and a series of intensive winter grazing workshops.
The council’s community engagement related to winter grazing consents was "highly commended" at the Local Government New Zealand conference in July this year, it said.
The council collected about $47 million in rates, an increase from about $40m the year before.
It also paid about $27m in salaries, an increase from about $24m the year before.
The council’s reported operating deficit of $3.9m was about $1.8m higher than the budgeted deficit of $2.2m, the report said.
One of the major factors noted in the report was public transport finishing the year about $1.8m below budgeted revenue.
A factor there was the continuation of $2 fares.
The report put the council’s total assets at about $1 billion.
The draft annual report was presented to the audit and risk committee in September for review, a staff covering report said.
The council’s auditor indicated there were no matters arising through the audit that warranted issuing a modified audit opinion, it said.
